Finally!
by NabikiB
Summary: The Second Wizard War was over, Voldemort was gone and Harry Potter had just been introduced to a very odd stranger by contacts he'd gained during the War in the Muggle military. When John Benton insisted that the best thing for the boy to do, was to go with this man and heal, he went. Rated for Future chapters.


_**01 **_

_**Finally **_

_**In Loco Parentis  
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><p>The Doctor put the exhausted teenaged boy to bed, his motions brisk but gentle as the Time Lord removed the ragged trainers and got Harry out of his jeans and under the covers of the bed. The TARDIS was already filling the bedroom with strange artifacts. Wizard's things, he supposed. The boy's wand was on the side table and the youngster himself was pale against the deep red of the coverlet and dark brown sheets. He was also covered in bandages and poultices of various kinds...the Doctor would tend to his injuries when he woke, until then the bandages and medicines he was already using would do. He stepped back and headed for the door where John Benton waited, then led him to the nearest TARDIS kitchen.<p>

"Right. What happened?"

"It _wasn't _aliens, it was an internal matter...the magical community had a seriously power-hungry, evil wizard that tried to take over the planet. Harry...there was a _prophecy _and rather than allow us to have _you _take a look at both it and the boy they assumed it was written in stone."

"They made a _child_ fight their war?"

"Yes." John wasn't happy. "We'd like you take him off and let him be himself, let him find out just exactly who Harry Potter _is_, because he's never gotten the chance to find that out. He needs to heal, he needs to be somewhere he won't drown in what he was forced to become. He's fourteen and his first battle..._full on battle_," Benton stressed, "Was about two years ago, at the ripe old age of twelve. They used him as the foci for the war, the leader, the decider...and didn't bother to _train _him. They apparently relied solely on that damned prophecy and left him on his own, utterly unsupported. And I don't mind telling you that the brass, from the Brig down, including me..._and _the Queen are all infuriated."

Benton paused while the Doctor softly turned the air mauve with curses. When the alien regained control, he continued. "The Brig wants you to take him on, raise him, teach him, be a parent. He's got the emotional maturity of a much younger child, by the way. Here's his dossiers, the earlier one is his so called childhood, he was rather badly abused from age 15 months when his parents were murdered and he still has some issues from that time. He was, we discovered, rather deliberately starved by his maternal aunt and her husband. They objected to his 'abnormality', meaning his magic and other assorted Gifts and his heritage. He needs you. His self esteem is even lower than your's. His aunt and her family, who are now in prison, by the way, actively trained him to consider himself worthless. Doctor, I've never met anyone who needs you more than _this_ boy does."

The Doctor had rarely been this angry. _"He was a baby!"_ He snapped as he flipped open the first one and started reading it.

"Yes. Unfortunately, normally, as we know, before you'd even consider fixing it...and this is the reason we asked you to let us drive you and your ship to an undisclosed location, they have their 'world', their communities masked from normal, mundane humans...if you don't know it's there you can't get in. We know where it is and how to enter. Once we're in, then you and the TARDIS can read whatever you need to. Maybe you can change it, maybe not. But one thing I do know about you, Doctor, is that you do have to get a good look at it first."

"True. Could be fixed points, _big_ ones." He flipped the last page of the second one closed. "Let her look around and then we're leaving and taking him somewhere where he can experience the one thing he has never known in his life since his parents died."

"What's that?"

"Safety. This one time, that's what's needed." And the Doctor heard his ship's confirmation in his mind. The boy could take no more and to add more would see his mind collapse to a degree she was unsure Harry could recover from. "No running, jogging maybe, yes. Races, even...but not running. Honestly, I'm so ticked off right now that I've got several different past personalities popping up to take over a bit because I am am so angry can barely think straight." The Doctor told Benton bluntly.

"I had wondered..." John murmured. "Could've sworn the little guy I first knew grinned at me a moment ago." This comment caused the Doctor to pause and settle down a bit, drawing an unwilling smile.

"Yes. He did. That me misses you too, John."

_"Ah."_

"First, he must be allowed to enjoy his own world, but long before his time. Hawaii, I think, a good thirty or forty years before he was born, possibly either before his parents were born or when they were very small children. Far from England and in the early fifties I think. That's long enough after the Second War not to be an issue and Korea wasn't one in the islands at any rate. So, I'll have the TARDIS alert the man I used to be of our presence and why."

They heard the Brig's bellow from the console room and rejoined him once the Doctor had checked on the sleeping boy one last time. "I hadn't thought I was a worrier, this time." Thirteen muttered to himself. "Though it has been a while since Clara left so I suppose I'm overdue. Haven't raised a human child since Ace and never one like _this_ poor lad." He ran his fingers through the boy's hair once and pulled up the covers, tucking him in with a quiet word to the TARDIS to keep an eye on the lad.

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><p>Both Brigs were firmly on the opposite side of a large hanger, each Time's Doctor next to his own version and sighing in resignation as the two bellowed information back and forth, well out of touching range. After Rose, Thirteen wasn't taking any chances with the probability of a friendly, encouraging back-slap between the two Brigs. The younger one's eyes glittered with ambition at the sight of his elder self's many metals and indicators of greatly increased rank. The older Doctor had cheated though, he'd let his older self bring his version of the Brig's wife and the younger version of the man gave up before he even started.<p>

This was because Doris..._elder_ Doris, was grinning at him in that way she had when she remembered how a discussion had gone...in her favor. Since this was the elder version of his wife, who _already_ managed him quite well, thank you very much, if she was wearing that particular smile about this discussion...

He signed off on it with no more than grumbles.

"See Doctor, Alistair knows what this grin means. It means he lost a significant argument and rather than find out just how much I won, he gave in without even getting started. That's what I remembered, though. Which is why I asked you to give my younger-self the note you did. I got a lot of concessions out of him, no need to lose those just because we tricked him a bit."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and grinned as the older Brig stared at his wife, spluttering. "That...that's...that's _cheating_!"

"And? It's already happened, what are you going to do? Tackle yourself and explain?"

"Not now, he's not. We're in the vortex and also, as I explained, _no touching yourself_."

"Doctor." Doris cut in. "Find another way to phrase that immediately!" She snapped.

"What? Why?" He paused, thought about it and turned a deep red. "Sorry Doris."

"Indeed. Aside from the universe ending result,_ it's just a very disturbing thought altogether_." The Brig told him as the Doctor opened the door and let them out into their own time. He didn't join them, though, closing the door instead and sent the ship back to the mid fifties and the Hawaiian Islands. He had a hurting boy to heal and teach.

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><p>**TBC**<p> 


End file.
